Anywhere
by ForgottenKaze
Summary: As Kagura is dieing, who should appear but Sesshoumaru? Sess/Kagu, chapter 374 spoilers.


So, I finally got volume 38, and read the chapter where Kagura dies. This is just a little something I wrote afterwards. A lot of this is taken from chapter 374.

Please read, review, and enjoy.

InuYasha and characters belong to Rumiko Takahashi, not me.

* * *

For a brief moment, she had been free.

For a brief moment, she had been able to feel, to live, to fly where ever she wished.

It was laughable, almost. Kagura had gotten what she wanted, but it had been taken away, and this time forever. Forever...

She was going to die. And so soon after she had been told –by an _enemy _no less- that she was to stay alive until her heart had been returned. Well, it had. But she could not enjoy the feeling.

_It's beating... My heart... _

Her crimson eyes were to the ground, watching the flowers swaying in the wind without seeing them. She turned her face to the sky, her eyes now fixated on a pair of birds in the distance, flying into the azure.

_Where should I go? _She wondered, her thoughts breaking the silence of her mind.

_I can go anywhere... I am free!_

The last word was filled with triumph. Finally, now, on the verge of death, she had become free. The only thing she had ever wanted. Freedom.

She tried to move. She tried to get up, to walk. But her hand, clenched in a fist amongst the pink flowers, would not shift.

_I... can't ... move... _She realised, shutting her eyes in despair as still more of her body was blown away into dust.

_It's so quiet... There's no one else here. _

_(...Not even him.)_

_I guess this is where it's going to end... all alone._

_This is the freedom I sought._

A slight rustling in the grass, a small change in the wind, alerted her to another's presence. She looked up, and was amazed to see Sesshoumaru, of all people, standing in front of her. She felt her heart beat a little faster at his appearance.

"I was following the scent of Naraku's miasma," he said softly, as if he needed to give a reason for his presence.

"Heh..." she laughed. She had been a fool to think that he had come for her. For _her, _the insignificant, disposable shade of Naraku. "Disappointed? That it was... just me?" She lowered her eyes, so she wouldn't have to see his face.

But if Kagura had looked, she would have seen the oddest of expressions pass over his face. It was almost... grief. Almost love.

"I knew it was you." Sesshoumaru's answer, soft, strong, and clear, made Kagura's heart pound in a painful, resounding way. She glanced up briefly, the lowered her sight back down.

"... You knew."

_And still... You came._

Sesshoumaru put his hand to his sword, then let it drop back down to his side.

_Tensaiga can't save her, _he thought numbly.

"This is... _it_, then?" the daiyoukai asked, though he was unsure why he did so. If Tensaiga couldn't save her, then there truly was no chance for her, and thus there was no point in asking her such a ridiculous question.

"Yes," she answered, her words become more uneven as her breathing more labours. "But... It's all right... now..."

_I was able to see you... One last time_

She lifted her head, and their eyes met. Neither would cry then, neither would say a word, but they both knew what the other wanted to say.

_«I love you... »_

And, with those final thoughts in her mind, Kagura's lips curved into a smile (_her first true smile? _He wondered vaguely), as her body collapsed into dust, and the single white feather slipped from her hair.

A blast of wind blew, sending the scent of flowers, of miasma, of Kagura's blood, of _Kagura, _into Sesshoumaru's face. He blinked, attempting to hide the tears that welled up, but he was, ultimately, unable to do so.

Inuyasha and his companions had come up behind him at some point, he noticed dully.

"Wind..." it was the human female, the miko, that whispered that.

"Kagura..." That was Kohaku.

... _The one she died to protect._

He took a step away.

"Hold it, Sesshoumaru!" It was his idiot half-brother. He stopped, and turned his head back towards him.

"Inuyasha?" the miko enquired, but Inuyasha ignored her. Whether he did so deliberately or not, he did not know nor care.

"... Did she suffer?" the hanyou asked after a short pause.

Sesshoumaru glanced up, knowing the others would follow his lead. His golden gaze rested on a small white feather floating on a gentle wind far above them.

"She was smiling," he replied as he walked away, hiding his face so that no one would see the tears that now spilled out onto his cheek, so hot against skin so cold.

As he left the clearing behind, his sharp ears caught the faintest remnant of a whisper:

_I am the wind... Free to fly wherever I wish!_


End file.
